Symphony's Valentine's Day program has plenty to love

British conductor Gilbert Varga leads the Houston Symphony this weekend.

Photo By Felix Broede/Houston Symphony

Gilbert Varga, British conductor, one of the Europe s most sought-after conductors. Having extensive experience in both chamber orchestra and symphonic repertoire, Varga has held positions with several orchestras and guest conducted major orchestras throughout the world.

Admittedly, the real-life love story it immortalizes was scandalous. Wagner and his bride had begun their affair while she was married to another man. But when he gave her the "Siegfried Idyll" as a Christmas surprise, they were newly married. And they went on to years of togetherness, which is more than you can say for the other lovers the Houston Symphony is depicting this weekend: Romeo and Juliet.

Don't you expect the couples out on date nights this weekend would rather end up like the Wagners? They'd certainly do well to take their lead from the tenderness that Wagner's music exudes - and that the orchestra captured so handily Thursday night.

The group was trimmed back to chamber-orchestra size, and guest conductor Gilbert Varga led it to bring out the music's coziness, lyricism and lilt.

The strings, who had the opening minutes to themselves, set the tone with their silky sound and caressing touch. Even when one group of players sang out a melody, others welled up with byplay that made things even more mellifluous. Varga kept the pace flowing but unhurried.

And when the woodwinds began entering, the strings dovetailed neatly with them. The oboe's little lullably had a particularly sweet, dancing air about it. When the winds joined in as a group, they weren't quite as deft as the strings. But they made the one big crescendo a ringing one.

Rather than a crescendo here or there, thunderclap fortissimos were what delivered the most potent impact in a set of excerpts from Sergei Prokofiev's "Romeo and Juliet" ballet. Yes, the orchestra played with crispness and spring in the cheerier spots - scampering along nimbly to depict the young Juliet. And the group's full, rich tone captured the surge of the lovers' passions.

But when Varga and the players reached the tomb scene, what made the tragedy hit home was the orchestra's sheer power: the stark brilliance of the strings and the booming power of the brasses.

In Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 5, the concert's centerpiece, the orchestra and soloist Vilde Frang - a young Norwegian - put breeziness and zest in the forefront. Sometimes, though, their strokes were so light that the music sounded wispy by the time it floated out into the capacious Jones Hall.